Status and Extent of Aquatic Protected Areas in the Great Lakes Scott R. Parker, Nicholas E. Mandrak, Jeff D. Truscott, Patrick L. Lawrence, Dan Kraus, Graham Bryan, and Mike Molnar Introduction The Laurentian Great Lakes are immensely important to the environmental, economic, and social well-being of both Canada and the United States (US). They form the largest surface freshwater system in the world. At over 30,000 km long, their mainland and island coastline is comparable in length to that of the contiguous US marine coastline (Government of Canada and USEPA 1995; Gronewold et al. 2013). With thousands of native species, including many endemics, the lakes are rich in biodiversity (Pearsall 2013). However, over the last century the Great Lakes have experienced profound human-caused changes, includ- ing those associated with land use changes, contaminants, invasive species, climate change, over-fishing, and habitat loss (e.g., Bunnell et al. 2014; Smith et al. 2015). It is a challenging context in terms of conservation, especially within protected areas established to safeguard species and their habitat. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a protected area is “a clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associat- ed ecosystem services and cultural values” (Dudley 2008). Depending on the management goals, protected areas can span the spectrum of IUCN categories from highly protected no- take reserves to multiple-use areas (Table 1). The potential values and benefits of protected areas are well established, including conserving biodiversity; protecting ecosystem structures and functions; being a focal point and context for public engagement, education, and good governance; supporting nature-based recreation and tourism; acting as a control or reference site for scientific research; providing a positive spill-over effect for fisheries; and helping to mitigate and adapt to climate change (e.g., Lemieux et al. 2010; Burt et al. 2014). Given their size and importance, the Great Lakes are often included in the designs of ma- rine protected area systems of both nations (Government of Canada 2011; NMPAC 2015). The George Wright Forum, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 381–393 (2017). © 2017 George Wright Society. All rights reserved. (No copyright is claimed for previously published material reprinted herein.) ISSN 0732-4715. Please direct all permissions requests to [email protected]. The George Wright Forum • vol. 34 no. 3 (2017) • 381 Table 1. Protected area designations. IUCN categories summarized from Dudley (2008) and de facto areas as recognized by NOAA (2010). For instance, Canada’s national marine conservation area system and the US’s national ma- rine sanctuary system both include freshwater protected areas within the Great Lakes (Mer- cier and Mondor 1995; NOAA 2009). Efforts to plan, establish, and more effectively man- age freshwater protected areas are broadly supported by the World Summit on Sustainable Development (United Nations 2002), the 2014 World Parks Congress (IUCN 2014), and other high-level international meetings (e.g., Saunders et al. 2002; Fitzsimons and Robertson 2005; Abell et al. 2007; Nel et al. 2009; Strayer and Dudgeon 2010). The Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD’s) Aichi Target 11 specifically commits Canada to the conser- vation of at least 17% of its terrestrial lands and inland waters by 2020 “through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures” (SCBD 2010). (Of note, the US is one of just two countries—the other is the Vatican State—that have not ratified or otherwise accepted the treaty; SCBD 2017.) Although a Great Lakes-wide protected area strategy does not exist, there are examples of binational mechanisms that could support such a strategy. For instance, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA), as renewed in 2012, facilitates cooperative actions to restore and protect the Great Lakes, and includes a species- and habitat-specific annex (Gov- ernments of the United States and Canada 2012). The Great Lakes Fishery Commission coordinates fishery research and cooperative fisheries management, and has examined the 382 • The George Wright Forum • vol. 34 no. 3 (2017) use of protected areas as a fisheries management tool (Hedges et al. 2011). Sub-nationally, all eight states bordering the Great Lakes, the province of Ontario, and regional and local governments have variously established protected areas. Dedicated nongovernmental organi- zations (NGOs) and private interests have also actively acquired lands for conservation and advocated for better protection. At a quick glance there appears to be hundreds of protected areas managed by a mul- titude of authorities, often working independently of each other. To advance conservation efforts and network thinking, we developed a database of coastal and in-lake protected areas for the Great Lakes. Methods The geospatial database for coastal and in-lake protected areas was built on a 1:24,000 scale Great Lakes GIS map layer (USGS 2014b). This high-resolution layer included the main- land and island coasts for each lake, excluding the St. Marys, Niagara, and St. Lawrence riv- ers. Available protected area databases (NOAA 2010; GLAHF 2014; USGS 2014a; CCEA 2015; IUCN and UNEP–WCMC 2015) were accessed, cross-referenced, and compiled into a single geodatabase layer. Government agencies responsible for parks and protected areas, and NGO conservation organizations, were also queried for additional geospatial data or information. The imported data were assessed for errors in spatial and attribute quality, and scale inconsistencies and, where necessary, geometries were corrected to ensure that bound- aries were accurate, properly intersected, or coincided with the shoreline layer. In cases where digital data were absent (e.g., boundaries described in literature through coordinate references), feature polygons were digitized for individual protected areas. The attribute table for the geodatabase included the site name, management authority, designation type, IUCN category, and geometry (e.g., length or area) for each feature. If an IUCN category was not al- ready assigned to a protected area in the imported data or by the agency source, it was desig- nated as “not reported.” A feature was designated “no protected area” if it did not meet the IUCN definition (Dudley 2008). Also included were areas not designated as protected areas, but which may provide partial protection or serve as “other effective area-based conservation measures” (refer to SCBD 2010), including fish refuges, cultural heritage sites, and de facto sites (see Table 1). Although inland areas will affect the health and ecological integrity of the lakes, the scale of focus for this analysis was coastal lands and the Great Lakes proper. The extent of coastal protection was measured as the length of shoreland protected at the water’s edge; the extent of in-lake protection, as the area within a protected area. The extent of protected and no-protected coast was calculated using the ESRI ArcGIS Desktop 10.3 “intersect” command using the 1:24,000 shoreline feature-class and comprehensive protected areas feature-class as inputs. The output polyline feature-class was segmented to represent lengths of shoreline coincident with areas protected and not protected. The length of each protected and no-protected coast segment was calculated using the “calculate geom- etry” function within ESRI ArcGIS and output with meters as the units using the North America Lambert Conformal Conic projection. The George Wright Forum • vol. 34 no. 3 (2017) • 383 Results Of the databases that were accessed, none provided complete and comprehensive representa- tion of protected areas. Refinement of feature geometries (e.g., snapping and clipping) was often required to accommodate the higher-resolution scale of this project. There were very few examples of contiguous land–lake protected areas. The shoreline, as defined by the or- dinary high-water mark or water’s edge, generally served as the boundary for terrestrial pro- tected areas along the coast. Great Lakes coastal protected areas. Over 370 protected areas representing IUCN categories I–VI were found to protect 27% of the length of the Great Lakes coast (Figure 1; Table 2). The largest category was “IUCN II National Park,” with 68 areas cumulatively representing 11% of the coast; the longest individual area was French River Provincial Park (979 km of Lake Huron). The most commonly assigned category was “IUCN V Protected Landscape” with 156 areas representing 4% of the coast length. Of the 558 km of coast pro- tected within 110 “IUCN Ia Strict Nature Reserves,” the majority of areas (n=74; 313 km) were established by NGOs (e.g., The Nature Conservancy, Nature Conservancy of Canada). The “IUCN Not Reported” category was assigned to 232 areas, representing 1.4% of the coast. Of the coastline consisting of “No Protected Area” (i.e., distance between protected areas), 62 coastal segments were >50 km in length, including one segment in Lake Ontario Figure 1. Great Lakes coastal and in-lake protected areas. 384 • The George Wright Forum • vol. 34 no. 3 (2017) Table 2. Coast length of Great Lakes protected areas. Terrestrially based coastal protected areas as measured in km along the shoreline at 1:24,000